San Antonio (Valparaiso & Viña del Mar), Chile

Sunday March 4

We were originally scheduled to arrive in the port of Valparaiso, but before we left on the cruise it was changed to San Antonia instead of Santiago which is about 1.5 hours away from Valparaiso. I had set up a private tour which was complicated when Princess changed the port location to be much farther from Valparaiso. They still could run the walking tour, but needed to charge more for the transportation. We also may have needed to drop Viña del Mar if time didn't allow. http://www.rutavalparaiso.cl/sitio_ruta_city_tours_en.htm

Since the port had changed to San Antonio it added 1 hour 20 minutes one way (approx.) of transportation cost that we did not have before. The cost for that transportation was $150 and would be $50 per couple more with 6 of us. It was a walking tour with public transportation where needed.
When I emailed to confirm the tour before boarding the ship the tour company said they made a mistake on the transportation cost and had to increase it by quite a bit. I set out to find another option, since no one else was charging that much. I found Perro Tours http://www.perrotour.com/en/ and it was still a walking tour, but we had a dedicated van that met us between the walks to made it easier to see more. So, the 3 couples agreed to make the change. We also opted to skip the Pablo Neruda Museum "La Sebastiana" (The 1971 Chilean Nobel Prize) in favor of having time to see a bit of Viña del Mar .

We were joined today by Trish & Gary and Susanne & John

The Captain arrived a bit late and had all aboard an hour before sailing instead of the 30 minutes the last Captain did. So, not off to a good start with him. We have not heard a single announcement from him.

We got off as quickly as we could and took the shuttle bus out of the port to where the independent guides gathered. We had instructions to stay in that area and not walk out to the street. A guy came by with a Perro sign and we stopped him, but he said we had Pedro as a guide and he should be there shortly. We were early, so we waited until about 10 minutes past our meeting time and I went and talked to him to see what was up. He called Pedro and Pedro was waiting on the street with the party that the guy with the Perro sign was waiting for. They must have mixed up our meeting instructions??? Anyway, we all got in our respective vans and after the driver made a wrong turn and we backtracked from where we started we were on our way to Viña del Mar. Our driver was Carlos and our guide was Pedro.

Only 7 Km away from Valparaíso is its sister city, Viña del Mar, also known as “The Garden City”. Famous for its beautiful beaches, tree lined avenues, promenades, lovely gardens, castles, old mansions and its casino, a walk through Viña del Mar was very enjoyable. We also stopped at a fish market which is always a treat. We also stopped to see a Moai from Easter Island that was on display in front of the Fronck Museum. It looked like an interesting museum if we would have had the time to visit.

Viña del Mar

 Austral Thrush

 Franklin's Gull

 Franklin's Gull - immature

 Black-crowned Night-Heron

 Blackish Oystercatcher

 Ruddy Turnstone

 Blackish Oystercatcher

 immature Gull

 Moai from Easter Island

 We visited a fish market

 octupus

 we went to the back of the fish market to use the restrooms, where we could see the locals working

After that we made the short drive to Valparaiso. Valparaíso is an intricate labyrinth. The walking tour there was awesome. All the homes in the hills, the narrow alleys and all of the street murals were amazing.

We took a funicular to the most famous part, known as the “World Heritage” area (proclaimed by UNESCO). We wandered the steep hilly streets and it was amazing seeing the colorful buildings and wall murals.

 the dark building isn't behind the lighter one, it's an addition on top of the other one

 funicular to the UNESCO area

We opted for a quick bite on the run since we really did not have time for a sit down meal. We stopped at a mini market and got some empanadas and a cold drink and kept walking. Would have been nice to sit down to eat, but it seemed a waste of time since we already were giving up seeing some of the lesser known areas of Valparaiso. We did stop and grab some ice cream on the go as well. All too soon it was time to leave.

Our last walking tour was around this park & surrounding area.

We made a grocery store stop for those that wanted to buy wine and then stopped at one last area for some photo ops.

It was a great day, just short on time thanks to the port change and the Captain arriving late and leaving early and then our guides crossing signals with our meeting plan in the morning.

All aboard was 5:00, but we left well after 8:00 as they were still loading supplies.

This was the end/beginning of a segment so there were a lot of new people on the ship. We also were surprised that even though we did a lifeboat drill just 16 days ago, we had to attend one again. We had gone down to dinner and the doors were closed to the restaurant. We were told we were supposed to be at the lifeboat drill. It was in the patter in the small print and no announcement was made to let us know.

The evening entertainment was Jeff Burghart the worst comedian we have ever heard.

We were trying to get prepared for our port day tomorrow, but we had 4 different sources telling us different port times. The TV said one time, the Patter had 2 different times and we had our original time when we booked the cruise and the updated time we were contacted with. It was originally 7:00 to 6:00 and then was changed to 8:00 to 7:00. The tour guide said not to worry, just meet as soon as we can get off and 8:00 would be fine.

From Buenos Aires to San Antonio we have traveled 3872 Nautical Miles. We are now on the last leg of the cruise making our way to La Serena, Chile.

Valparaiso & Vicuña Chile https://photos.app.goo.gl/jrkfyReHJFuBXCCQ9